Exemplary Science In Informal Education Settings Standards Based Success Stories

Just as science education doesn't stop at the schoolhouse door, neither should effective application of the US National Science Education Standards. Exemplary Science in Informal Education Settings shows real-world examples of how science education reform has taken hold in museums, science centers, zoos, and aquariums as well as on television, radio, and the Internet. This essay collection, the fifth volume in the Exemplary Science Monograph series, features 17 informal education programs that were judged to be most successful at increasing participants' learning. The programs demonstrate how the Standards can be used to inform and improve science education in a wide range of settings and with learners ranging from preschoolers to older adults.

Since their release in 1996, the US National Science Standards have provided the vision for science education reform. But has that reform actually taken hold in elementary school? "Yes!" reports Robert Yager, editor of Exemplary Science in Grades PreK - 4: Standards-Based Success Stories, "Probably the Standards have done more to change science in elementary schools than has occurred at the other grade levels. Evidence of change is apparent in this fourth volume of the Exemplary Science monograph series, an essay collection featuring educators in PreK - 4 describing programs they've developed to fulfill the Standards' More Emphasis guidelines. The 14 programs are real-life examples you can learn from in carrying out reforms in teaching, assessment, professional development, and content. Among the topics covered: "Adapting Science Curricula in the Kindergarten Classroom," "Building on the Natural Wonder Inherent in Us All," "Guiding Students in Active and Extended Scientific Inquiry," "Active Integrated Inquiry in an Afterschool Setting," and "Thinking Outside the Box: No Child Left Inside!" As Yager writes in the book's introduction, "The 14 exemplary programs can be seen as models for other teachers, not just to copy, but as ways of approaching science and encouraging their students to do more of what they like..." When both teachers and students are enthused, curious, and involved, science becomes central to the lives of students and others in the community and can tie the whole school experience together.

Do the Standards really matter in middle school? Nine years after the National Science Education Standards' release, just how well do science teachers in grades 5 to 8 actually use them to plan content, define improved teaching, and assess real learning? Find out the answers to these key quesitons in this groundbreaking collection of 15 essays by teachers, researchers, and professors whose specialty is middle school. Nine years after the release of the Standards, these educators describe what they're doing to achieve the visions for the reform of teaching, assessment, professionaldevelopment, and content. All the visions correspond to the Less Emphasis and More Emphasis conditions that conclude each section of the Standards, characterizing what most teachers and programs should do less of as well as decribing the changes needed if real reform is to occur. Among this collection's wide-ranging essay topics: "Teaching Science With Student Thinking in Mind," "The Relationship Between a Professional Devleopment Model and Student Achievement," "Creating a Classroom Culture of Scientific Practices," "Traveling the Inquiry Continuum: Learning Through Teacher Action Research," "What Do We Get to Do Today? The Middle School Full Option Science System Program," and "Teach Them to Fish." This volume is the third in NSTA Press's Exemplary Science monograph series, which provides the results of an unprecedented national search to assess how well the Standards' vision has been realized.

Practitioners in informal science settings-museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, libraries, aquariums, zoos, and botanical gardens-are interested in finding out what learning looks like, how to measure it, and what they can do to ensure that people of all ages, from different backgrounds and cultures, have a positive learning experience. Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments, is designed to make that task easier. Based on the National Research Council study, Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits, this book is a tool that provides case studies, illustrative examples, and probing questions for practitioners. In short, this book makes valuable research accessible to those working in informal science: educators, museum professionals, university faculty, youth leaders, media specialists, publishers, broadcast journalists, and many others.

Over the course of the past decade and a half, we, Samuel Totten and Jon E. Pedersen, have co-edited a series of books on teaching and learning about social issues. Our goal has been to build a series that would broadly represent the work that has been undertaken over the past 110 plus years related to the field of teaching and learning about social issues. As we created and added to the series (see for example: Addressing Social Issues in the Classroom and Beyond: The Pedagogical Efforts of Pioneers in the Field; Researching and Teaching Social Issues: The Personal Stories and Pedagogical Efforts of Professors of Education; Teaching and Studying Social Issues: Major Programs and Approaches), we came to the conclusion that the development of an annotated bibliography of the key works (books, chapters, articles, reports, and research) on a wide-range of issues/topics germane to teaching and learning about social issues was a logical addition to the series. In Educating About Social Issues in the 20th and 21st Centuries Volume 1: A Critical Annotated Bibliography (which was published in early 2012), the focus was on a host of programs, models, strategies and concerns vis-à-vis teaching and learning about social issues. This new book constitutes Volume Two in the series entitled Educating About Social Issues in the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries and picks up where Volume One left off. Included in this book are the pioneering works of the following: Boyd Bode, Alan F. Griffin, G. Gordon Hullfish, Richard Gross, Robert Yager, and James Banks. Collectively, their work on social issues spans the period between the late 1930s through the present (with James Banks and Robert Yager continuing to publish through today). As for the subjects/topics (other than pioneers of teaching about social issues) addressed in this volume, they are: Issues-Centered Approaches to Teaching Geography, Addressing Social Issues in Sociology and Anthropology Courses, Peace Studies, The Vietnam War, and LBGT.

This book provides a diverse look at various aspects of preparing informal science educators. Much has been published about the importance of preparing formal classroom educators, but little has been written about the importance, need, and best practices for training professionals who teach in aquariums, camps, parks, museums, etc. The reader will find that as a collective the chapters of the book are well-related and paint a clear picture that there are varying ways to approach informal educator preparation, but all are important. The volume is divided into five topics: Defining Informal Science Education, Professional Development, Designing Programs, Zone of Reflexivity: The Space Between Formal and Informal Educators, and Public Communication. The authors have written chapters for practitioners, researchers and those who are interested in assessment and evaluation, formal and informal educator preparation, gender equity, place-based education, professional development, program design, reflective practice, and science communication. Readers will draw meaning and usefulness from the array of professional perspectives and be stimulated to begin a quest to scaffold programs and professional development around the frameworks described in this book.